The Stitch Witch

The castors did poorly this year, but they're still delightfully odd looking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was really looking forward to having this enormous spikey beast that dwarfed the garage and terrified the new neighbors (they're perfectly decent people, but the pleasure in tweaking people out with my own Audrey II far outstrips any desire for social niceties) but the weather wasn't very cooperative this year.

The sky's been marvelous lately.

And the knitting goes well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A non-wool wearing friend (of the allergic sort, not the arbitrarily wool hating sort. We don't stand wool hating.) has nobly volunteered to wear sock liners if that's what's necessary to give these future socks a good home. It good to have friends who refuse to let handknit socks go to waste even when it means risking a rash. And this is a freaking awesome color. 

No, really, this isn't a flower blog

At least half the fun of photographing flowers is catching bees in flight

Though that one looks more like it's hanging on for dear life. 

Every year, Lull grows a field of sunflowers next to the apple orchards. The early Macs are ready but rest of the apples have a week or two to go. And the sunflowers, most of them aren't blooming just yet. Just a few here and there-a little sample of what's to come in another week or so.

A few were just starting to bloom

They're pretty goofy looking in my opinion...hair sticking up on top, scrunched up mouth on the bottom.

Yes, sometimes I anthropomorphize plants. Don't know why-I prefer them to people most days so the comparision isn't very kind.

Meh. People. One day, at work, I will undoubtedly succumb to the urge to demand "What the fuck were you thinking?!" of some hapless soul who clearly had not been thinking (the source of pretty much every HR disaster that crosses my path) which is why we're now trapped in a office together, me with my battered legal pad, them with a sinking feeling, both of us wondering at some point exactly how much more stifling the room can get before the damn AC finally kicks on. 

I'd much rather be outside.  The air's better, as is the company. 

The perfect late summer lunch  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One just picked Brandywine tomato, home made mozzerella that's still warm, and some basil from the herb garden. All of it sprinkled with a little salt, pepper, olive oil, and a decent balsamic vinegar.  Add a book (The Liar's Club), some iced tea, and a beautiful 75 degree day.

And maybe a sunflower or two

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Relax.

Gladiola Interlude

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh do I ever love them.

the knitting in daylight

A quick picture before the boys tear themselves to shreds:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The spiffy new coffee mug has debuted as 'yarn holder extraordinaire'  Eventually, it'll serve coffee.  I'm actually halfway through the second pattern repeat, but this pic's more about showing the actual color of the yarn than anything else.

And, the daylilies are about done. Have a Rose of Sharon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a beautiful day. Peace out.

Hark! Is that Knitting?

First things first, though: The Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had very fresh tomatoes with breakfast today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We're having another season of beautiful eggplant. I still won't eat it, but it's pretty after a downpour.

And knitting, which is what one does when it's 88 degrees and wretchedly humid outside. A bike ride never even crossed my mind today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Pomatomus which, despite my relative intelligence, I can never quite remember. Hippopotamus. Platypus. Anything but Pomatomus. Duh. It's been on my 'to knit' list for a few years, but I've had an irrational devotion to the Handpaint Highlights pattern and have been loathe to stray. It's pretty straightforward, once you get the rhythm down...I spent the evening in house with 4 kids hopped up on ice cream and bad movies and I didn't manage to screw up once. Of course, there are 2 more repeats before the heel, plenty of time for things to go awry, but I don't think so. It's the sort of pattern that basically shouts "HEY!! YOU!! YEAH, YOU!! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING PURLING? KTBL, DUMBASS!! " Would that all patterns were this assertive. Anyhoo, things are a little a little blurry and the colors aren't true...I'd like to blame this on poor lighting and the fact that my model is  a perpetual motion machine who could barely be compelled to put her arm down for a just one second. Interferes with her ability to talk, you see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, she's sitting still in this picture, but only because she's been (briefly) transfixed by Gift of The Wind in Porter Square. There's nothing like a good kinetic sculpture to slow kids down for a minute or two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sunrise, sunset, skunk

It was a fairly mundane day:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun rose.

I worked. Since the gluten free thing's left me feeling far bouncier, I'm once again considering biking part way to work.  I don't get outside enough, though there are some pleasures to be had in cruising down the highway, singing at the top of my lungs at 6am. If I ever subjected people to that while I was biking, I'd be arrested (and rightfully so)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun set in a quiet, comfortable sort of way.  I did not work from sunrise to sunset, though it was a long day. On the way home, I was distracted by Crate and Barrel and succumbed to the temptation of a happy orange flowered mug and a fierce orange dishtowel. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went outside around 10:30 to take pictures of the moon and was accosted by a waddling, grub munching skunk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hung out for 15 minutes or so while I honed my nonexistent 'focusing the camera in the dark' skills.  I didn't have a reasonable light source (SOMEBODY depleted the flashlight batteries while reading in bed. Hmmmmm.) so I ended taking a picture (using the flash, of course), then adjusting the focus based on the wee image I was reviewing on the screen, and then doing it all over again. Eventually, I managed to focus the damn thing but, at that point, Pepe Le Pew had about had enough and was starting to do a grumpy skunk dance.

Can't say that I blame him. He'll being seeing purple spots from the flash for hours.

 

Ha! The sun cooperated late in the day, just in time for a daylily photoshoot:

Another week or so and my ability to flood the interwebs with bazillions of daylily photos will have been thwarted by Nature herself.

It's developed into a kind of routine: come home from work, take care of dinner, wander around with camera. The morning variation is crawl out of bed, brew coffee, wander around with camera while coffee is brewing.

Next week, it's back to the rail trail for a few short 'early season' rides. I blew all of spring and pretty much the entire summer feeling like crap and not riding but better a late start to the season than not at all. With any luck,the weather'll stay fairly mild this fall and I can stretch out the season til Thanksgiving. Or later.

If I do, I'll suck it up and buy a pair of long, stretchy bike pants-the sort of thing that's supposed to keep you comfortable when biking on chill days but leaves me thinking that all I'm gonna do is spend the ride obsessing over my resemblence to a 40 year old Italian sausage.  A sausage in a fairly pricey casing, for that matter. But they're better than the alternative-biking in sweats. Sweats get caught at inopportune moments.  Sweats make you look like a Schlumpadinka on wheels...unless you have 0% body fat, sweats are by far the best way to look like The Blob on a bike. They don't wick off sweat very well. Or at all, actually, so you're left with sopping, hot clothes. And around that point, they start to chafe. We won't even go there.

Besides, I'll bet the wretched loosestrife is blooming beautifully as it chokes the life out of the waters surrounding the trail. It'd be a change from daylilies.

 

Out of daylilies today

I know, will wonders ever cease? Have some Russian Sage and happy yellow Something-Or-Others today: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still haven't quite mastered the art of manual focusing, but what the hell, the colors are pretty.

The summer is finally upon us,and seems to be making up for lost time. Between the humidity and all the crap in the air, the sun always seems a little pissed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That was sunset last night. Of course, it is a flaming ball of gas; I suppose it has the right to look like one.

Mornings are marginally better, but only marginally:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That little rhyme I learned as a kid "red sky at night; sailors delight. red sky at morning; sailors take warning"  is fairly apt considering the storms that are constantly rolling through. The sun disappeared not long after I took this (6am, in Chelmsford. Yes, I was rolling on Route 3) and hasn't been back since.

 

 This morning at 8:30, a hapless college intern showed up on my doorstep, unannounced, to tell me we had 5-7 minutes to go over the new high school student handbook and was there a place we could sit down?

For her sake, I hope I'm the only misanthropic mom who said 'No" and shut the door in her face before she could disagree.  

It just doesn't pay to disturb me during my only quiet time of the day.

The tomatoes are suddenly coming along quite nicely, as is the eggplant. As for the rest of the veggies...unless this warm spell lasts through September, they're done for. I haven't the heart to concede defeat and  pitch them into the compost heap just yet.  

But there are always daylilies:

 

Especially orange daylilies.

 

Though the pinky-fuschia's not bad.

 

 

 

 

And the reds have a certain appeal as well.